I'd be immensely wary of Sony declaring themselves open to indie devs. When I was a teenager I did homebrew development on the Sony PSP. Sony did every damned thing in their power to stop it. To run homebrew, you had to either run an older version of firmware or root the device. Every time an exploit was patched, a new one was found. This inevitably meant a lot of people spent a lot of time rooting the PSP[1]. I was impressed with how the security of the device fell time and time again to the community.
If Sony just allowed the PSP to run homebrew games, they'd not be in such a mess. Many of the developers rooting the devices just wanted to run their own software, but the shadow community would use that result to pirate games. Separating the two communities by allowing homebrew software on their device would have made sense for their own protection.
This was then followed up by the PS3. After releasing with both the ability to run Linux, they removed both. You paid for a device with X, then they removed X. Understandably the community became somewhat irate. Eventually their private signing key for their entire console was leaked due to the desire to allow homebrew and to restore OtherOS (Linux) support[2]. Sony's legal department tried to fix that...
So, from all this past history, I wouldn't trust Sony's new direction. At the very least not until they start to act on their new found conviction.
Edit: Thanks for Dylan16807 correcting me re: PS2 emulation. Having a deeper read into it, the situation is confusing -- some models have hardware PS2 support, others do emulation, and then it was completely dropped whilst "PS2 Classics" (recompiled or via emulation) were released on the PS3 as pay for downloads.
>> I'd be immensely wary of Sony declaring themselves open to indie devs. When I was a teenager I did homebrew development on the Sony PSP. Sony did every damned thing in their power to stop it. To run homebrew, you had to either run an older version of firmware or root the device. Every time an exploit was patched, a new one was found.
>> This was then followed up by the PS3. After releasing with both the ability to run Linux, they removed both. You paid for a device with X, then they removed X
I'm not denying those were some pretty dick-headed moves from Sony, but in all fairness, none of it is even remotely related to Indie game development. Hacking the firmware to circumvent security features -no matter how noble the intentions- has nothing to do with serious game development, and Linux on the PS3 was explicitly marketed as unsuitable for game development. You couldn't even use the GPU for anything.
Indie developers don't want to mess around with hacked consoles, they just want to write games, get them in customers hands, and make money, through offically supported channels. It has nothing to do with homebrew development.
If you watched the announcement I think you can get a sense that Sony has learned a lot from their past. You can tell that they cared about the people that they made this product for.
Something really striking about this whole Xbox One vs PS4 thing is how one sided the enthusiasm is (in favor of the PS4). It's all the more striking when you consider that the gaming community is one of the most passionate, fickle, and hardest-to-please bunch of people there are.
I think Sony really listened to what people really wanted and made something with those things in mind.
Just gauging the reactions from across the internet and from across my diverse group of friends, the PS4 is being received so incredibly well and the sentiment towards the Xbox One is exactly the opposite.
First off, the PS2 backwards compatibility was a feature of physical chips that was in some units and not others, and never got disabled by anything afaik.
But as to how Sony will handle indie devs. I view it as a situation similar to Apple. They are very hostile to the end user having root control over devices, but they are perfectly happy to allow any kind of indie games onto the platform. I don't think there is any risk of the sandboxed games going away.
Keep in mind - homebrew is not self-publishing. Publishing still makes Sony money since they are being licensed to run on the hardware. The indie devs were sent dev-kits like any other big name shop to do their work on (this is explicitly stated when Octodad was mentioned). Homebrew is allowing anyone to write applications on the platform, and understandably (though this is not what I would like to see) they are locking that down still because of the shadow community. If they make it too easy to pirate games, then anyone will do it - not just those able to root the hardware (no matter how easy it may be).
My guess is that the dev-kits are just being made easier to obtain - either via price point or whatever other restrictions are in place.
Agreed I have a strong distrust of Sony practices based off my experience friend's experiences with ps3 and my own with the sony vaio laptops. Unfortunately it's hard for me to forget the image of the NSA tapping into my xbox because of its association with Microsoft. I wonder if Sony would be as firm about tampering by gov't agencies as it has been to it's customers.
Remember how PS 3 let users load their own Linux then a year or two later they sent out a firmware update that turned it off. Like imagine buying a car then the dealership sends a rep over and takes the nice stereo out and installs a cheaper model...but doesn't give you a refund, or a choice. And this stood up in court?
Sony dangles these features like candy and they can take them away on a whim, but I don't think it will happen this time. Sony took away Linux because they were scrambling to plug any potential hole that would lead to piracy on the PS3.
Aside from curiosity, the foremost minds that opened up (jailbroke) the PS3 were motivated because of the lack of homebrew support -- the ability for hobbyists to run unsigned software on the PS3. Getting license to and legally develop for the PS3 is simply not a viable avenue for most people. Sony appears to have their bases covered this time in showing their support for indie developers. If it is easy, and most importantly accessible to develop software on the PS4, you won't see nearly the offensive to crack the system open apart from proof of concept, unpublished or artificially limited exploits.
> Remember how PS 3 let users load their own Linux then a year or two later they sent out a firmware update that turned it off.
It's unfortunate that the attention span of most users is as short. Aside from the Linux issue, the PS3 was decidedly hostile towards small game companies for a very long time (ridiculous development system costs, year long approval process etc.).
It was actually close to three years later, but the rest of your point stands. I, too, am concerned about them "taking back" features I paid for.
That said, in the case of Other OS, I'm pretty sure the only reason they got away with it was because almost nobody used this feature. Indie games would hopefully be more popular, and hence harder for them to back out of.
The fact is Sony just has to produce a more "open" console than Microsoft and Nintendo, and it looks like they are doing that. Microsoft is a huge sell out, looking to control every aspect once again, and Nintendo have lost the plot completely.
PS4 more like an appstore, the war of consoles has already been won. Congratulations Sony.
Companies like Halfbrick, Rovio, Firemint, Pixelbite and many many more were made by an open market on mobile. I am excited to see what games will pop up on PS4. They already had better indie exclusives like Joe Danger, Fat Princess and more. Good times ahead for gaming on the PS4.
What I don't get is being open appstores attracts developers and sells more hardware and subsequently more games. Why would Microsoft shut that down? Bigger economies always sell more.
Microsoft has a very long history of screwing up once they get on top. They're great when they're the underdog doing the chasing, they tend to catch up over time. Once they finally build a great product, you can almost always count on them royally screwing it up. Then the process starts all over again.
This is another symptom that the marketing logic of consoles is off the rails. Consoles were closed devices because that's how console users could be made to pay for console hardware - through game prices.
For a couple decades, the economics of this worked just fine. Until just recently, developing for a console market of a few tens of millions was far more lucrative than writing for any "open" games market. But now, with billions of smartphones, which amounts to a crushing ratio of 2.x orders of magnitude over consoles, games for smart mobile devices are making a serious dent - enough so that Microsoft led with their "old people" passive media features for Xbox One.
It is an open question if the console economy can be sustained. Can enough be sold to make a viable market for game publishers? Hardcore gamers have PC gaming to fall back upon, so they will not save the consoles. The "living room PC" was always a loser, and it is hard to see how mixing that in with a console is now going to be a winner.
But now, with billions of smartphones, which amounts to a crushing ratio of 2.x orders of magnitude over consoles, games for smart mobile devices are making a serious dent - enough so that Microsoft led with their "old people" passive media features for Xbox One.
Do you have any evidence for this "serious dent" that smartphone gaming is having on the industry?
I don't see how the smartphone game market overlaps with the same market that is purchasing an Xbox 360 or PS3. If anything, it overlaps the handheld market, but the Nintendo 3DS is still selling very well despite competing with smartphones for people's gaming dollars.
For the "gaming" market (ie. people who play more than the occasional round of Solitaire or Angry Birds), smartphones are still underwhelming. Even take the Madden and CoD crowd that many gaming enthusiasts disparage. Why would they care about lackluster smartphone games?
If anything the smartphone market aligns with those who bought a Wii for Wii Sports and then hardly used the thing much longer other than maybe as a Netflix device. But that was never a long-term market anyways.
Plus, the smartphone gaming market seems to have a pricing issue where everyone expects games to be either free or $1. Can you imagine a game on the Google Play store costing $30+ dollars as they do for a 3DS or Vita? Let along $60 for a PS4 or Xbone One title?
When they say they will allow X it means they will allow exactly X and no more, so I'm sure there will be approval. But developers may get to keep ~70% instead of ~30%.
It's hard to say how this will work out, but compared to Microsoft who has seemed to expend a tremendous amount of effort crapping all over indie game devs it's hard to see this as anything other than very promising.
IMO, this is largely an urban legend. The crash of 1983 was almost entirely caused by first party developers (namely Atari), and very non-just-in-time retail inventory practices.
Yes, but what about the SDK costs? I believe special development hardware was required for PS3 development which had/has a cost of around $10k. If Sony is offering similar pricing for the PS4 SDK then what's the point of indie publishing?
emmm, OK but Nintendo has already did that on Nintendo Wii U - inde dev can publish their game (after Nintendo's approval) without coping with any big publisher. It is funny how Nintendo is super innovative but often overlook (similar as Opera on the browsers market).
The Wii U didn't innovate on this: Sony has been allowing developers to self publish on the PS3 and PS Vita for some time now[1]. This is just a continuation of that policy into the next generation. Much of the news coming out of E3 for Sony has been "we're not changing our policies, unlike our competitor".
imo the Ouya is pretty much obsolete. Current gen smartphones are more powerful and coupled with an HDMI cable and a bluetooth controller (from the PS3 for example) offer the same thing plus are portable.
Ouya is all about its own Store and ecosystem, games built for their system/controller etc and also its low price point. I still think it will have a hard time.
I'm so enjoying this... It's going to be a blood bath for Xbox One.
If we include the fact that the Xbox will be spying on you in the living room and most likely giving the data to the NSA it's obvious what we should all purchase.
I's rather not have the NSA recording my living room.
Online play seems to require Playstation Plus however. It seems they've followed Microsoft in this matter. So if your game is online, it could get interesting. Though from what I understand playstation plus gives steam level discounts to gamers on a console.
Indeed. It's not quite as cheap as steam (75% off), but if you keep your subscription up you'll get a bunch of free games that puts the subscription into "great deal" territory.
I was on the fence about it for a long time, but after the second time my console died and lost all my game saves, I wanted the cloud save feature. It ends up that since I bought the PS Plus subscription, I actually haven't bought any games. I'm a infrequent gamer - I play games, but not every day. My back catalog of good games is pretty big, so there's a lot of good stuff that comes through the freebie channel.
This month they gave out Uncharted 3, XCom, LBP Karting (I bought it when it was $10 for PS+ subscribers), and Deus Ex Human Revolution. Previously they've had Ratchet and Clank, Spec Ops: The Line, Sleeping Dogs, and a bunch of other big studio titles. If you bought just the titles for this month you'd spend at least $50, even at the cheapest retailers online.
Is getting a devkit getting any easier / cheaper? Apple got to where it was by opening up the ios development to everyone and not requiring an arcane process to become an approved developer.
Welp, I know what console I'm buying next. I haven't purchased a gaming console since the very first PS2s that hit eBay before xmas that year, but I think it's once again time.
That the guy who has been getting what amounts to fairly special treatment since the jump (with The Dishwasher) likes the guys who created his meal ticket is not terribly surprising.
(Not saying he's wrong to feel that way, but his biases are stark.)
[+] [-] Smerity|12 years ago|reply
If Sony just allowed the PSP to run homebrew games, they'd not be in such a mess. Many of the developers rooting the devices just wanted to run their own software, but the shadow community would use that result to pirate games. Separating the two communities by allowing homebrew software on their device would have made sense for their own protection.
This was then followed up by the PS3. After releasing with both the ability to run Linux, they removed both. You paid for a device with X, then they removed X. Understandably the community became somewhat irate. Eventually their private signing key for their entire console was leaked due to the desire to allow homebrew and to restore OtherOS (Linux) support[2]. Sony's legal department tried to fix that...
So, from all this past history, I wouldn't trust Sony's new direction. At the very least not until they start to act on their new found conviction.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable#Homebrew
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz#Hacking_the_PlaySta...
Edit: Thanks for Dylan16807 correcting me re: PS2 emulation. Having a deeper read into it, the situation is confusing -- some models have hardware PS2 support, others do emulation, and then it was completely dropped whilst "PS2 Classics" (recompiled or via emulation) were released on the PS3 as pay for downloads.
[+] [-] w0utert|12 years ago|reply
>> This was then followed up by the PS3. After releasing with both the ability to run Linux, they removed both. You paid for a device with X, then they removed X
I'm not denying those were some pretty dick-headed moves from Sony, but in all fairness, none of it is even remotely related to Indie game development. Hacking the firmware to circumvent security features -no matter how noble the intentions- has nothing to do with serious game development, and Linux on the PS3 was explicitly marketed as unsuitable for game development. You couldn't even use the GPU for anything.
Indie developers don't want to mess around with hacked consoles, they just want to write games, get them in customers hands, and make money, through offically supported channels. It has nothing to do with homebrew development.
[+] [-] onedev|12 years ago|reply
Something really striking about this whole Xbox One vs PS4 thing is how one sided the enthusiasm is (in favor of the PS4). It's all the more striking when you consider that the gaming community is one of the most passionate, fickle, and hardest-to-please bunch of people there are.
I think Sony really listened to what people really wanted and made something with those things in mind.
Just gauging the reactions from across the internet and from across my diverse group of friends, the PS4 is being received so incredibly well and the sentiment towards the Xbox One is exactly the opposite.
[+] [-] pjmlp|12 years ago|reply
Original PS -> Yaroze
PS2 -> PS2Linux with full hardware access, except for some professional APIs.
PS3 -> Here they went downhill with the graphics crippled OtherOS, while removing it altogether afterwards
PSP Vita -> PlayStation Suite
So although they are a bit schizophrenic in supporting vs attacking indies, the company does indeed have a long history already in doing it.
[+] [-] Dylan16807|12 years ago|reply
But as to how Sony will handle indie devs. I view it as a situation similar to Apple. They are very hostile to the end user having root control over devices, but they are perfectly happy to allow any kind of indie games onto the platform. I don't think there is any risk of the sandboxed games going away.
[+] [-] elliottcarlson|12 years ago|reply
My guess is that the dev-kits are just being made easier to obtain - either via price point or whatever other restrictions are in place.
[+] [-] joyeuse6701|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] workbench|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jebblue|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xatnys|12 years ago|reply
Aside from curiosity, the foremost minds that opened up (jailbroke) the PS3 were motivated because of the lack of homebrew support -- the ability for hobbyists to run unsigned software on the PS3. Getting license to and legally develop for the PS3 is simply not a viable avenue for most people. Sony appears to have their bases covered this time in showing their support for indie developers. If it is easy, and most importantly accessible to develop software on the PS4, you won't see nearly the offensive to crack the system open apart from proof of concept, unpublished or artificially limited exploits.
[+] [-] _pmf_|12 years ago|reply
It's unfortunate that the attention span of most users is as short. Aside from the Linux issue, the PS3 was decidedly hostile towards small game companies for a very long time (ridiculous development system costs, year long approval process etc.).
[+] [-] xenomachina|12 years ago|reply
That said, in the case of Other OS, I'm pretty sure the only reason they got away with it was because almost nobody used this feature. Indie games would hopefully be more popular, and hence harder for them to back out of.
[+] [-] megablast|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drawkbox|12 years ago|reply
Companies like Halfbrick, Rovio, Firemint, Pixelbite and many many more were made by an open market on mobile. I am excited to see what games will pop up on PS4. They already had better indie exclusives like Joe Danger, Fat Princess and more. Good times ahead for gaming on the PS4.
What I don't get is being open appstores attracts developers and sells more hardware and subsequently more games. Why would Microsoft shut that down? Bigger economies always sell more.
[+] [-] adventured|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zigurd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zigurd|12 years ago|reply
For a couple decades, the economics of this worked just fine. Until just recently, developing for a console market of a few tens of millions was far more lucrative than writing for any "open" games market. But now, with billions of smartphones, which amounts to a crushing ratio of 2.x orders of magnitude over consoles, games for smart mobile devices are making a serious dent - enough so that Microsoft led with their "old people" passive media features for Xbox One.
It is an open question if the console economy can be sustained. Can enough be sold to make a viable market for game publishers? Hardcore gamers have PC gaming to fall back upon, so they will not save the consoles. The "living room PC" was always a loser, and it is hard to see how mixing that in with a console is now going to be a winner.
[+] [-] Goronmon|12 years ago|reply
Do you have any evidence for this "serious dent" that smartphone gaming is having on the industry?
I don't see how the smartphone game market overlaps with the same market that is purchasing an Xbox 360 or PS3. If anything, it overlaps the handheld market, but the Nintendo 3DS is still selling very well despite competing with smartphones for people's gaming dollars.
For the "gaming" market (ie. people who play more than the occasional round of Solitaire or Angry Birds), smartphones are still underwhelming. Even take the Madden and CoD crowd that many gaming enthusiasts disparage. Why would they care about lackluster smartphone games?
If anything the smartphone market aligns with those who bought a Wii for Wii Sports and then hardly used the thing much longer other than maybe as a Netflix device. But that was never a long-term market anyways.
Plus, the smartphone gaming market seems to have a pricing issue where everyone expects games to be either free or $1. Can you imagine a game on the Google Play store costing $30+ dollars as they do for a 3DS or Vita? Let along $60 for a PS4 or Xbone One title?
[+] [-] TillE|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greghinch|12 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_cras...
[+] [-] vinkelhake|12 years ago|reply
There's a tremendous amount of trash on those marketplaces. I haven't seen any indications that it would lead to a crash.
[+] [-] flomo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkhattab|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmf|12 years ago|reply
1. Develop/release indie game on Windows.
2. Sell a lot of copies (relatively speaking).
3. Sony gives you free SDK.
4. Release indie game on PS3/4.
5. For your second game (e.g. Transistor, The Witness) you can develop for PS4 in parallel with Windows because you already have the SDK.
[+] [-] kanja|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apa-sl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itafroma|12 years ago|reply
[1]: http://us.playstation.com/develop/
[+] [-] bichiliad|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _pmf_|12 years ago|reply
The Ouya is perfectly capable of making itself obsolete, thank you very much.
[+] [-] kayoone|12 years ago|reply
Ouya is all about its own Store and ecosystem, games built for their system/controller etc and also its low price point. I still think it will have a hard time.
[+] [-] thejosh|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanp2k2|12 years ago|reply
OUYA had the spotlight for a hot minute there, and they kinda blew it with crappy hardware, crappy UX, and crappy games.
[+] [-] Fuxy|12 years ago|reply
I's rather not have the NSA recording my living room.
[+] [-] specto|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caw|12 years ago|reply
I was on the fence about it for a long time, but after the second time my console died and lost all my game saves, I wanted the cloud save feature. It ends up that since I bought the PS Plus subscription, I actually haven't bought any games. I'm a infrequent gamer - I play games, but not every day. My back catalog of good games is pretty big, so there's a lot of good stuff that comes through the freebie channel.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/06/10/playstation-plus-e.... If you scroll down you see the discounts on purchases.
This month they gave out Uncharted 3, XCom, LBP Karting (I bought it when it was $10 for PS+ subscribers), and Deus Ex Human Revolution. Previously they've had Ratchet and Clank, Spec Ops: The Line, Sleeping Dogs, and a bunch of other big studio titles. If you bought just the titles for this month you'd spend at least $50, even at the cheapest retailers online.
[+] [-] FatalBaboon|12 years ago|reply
If Sony does maintains significant advantage on the freedom of its users, they will crush Microsoft. It's not even going to be funny.
[+] [-] z3phyr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dman|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teamonkey|12 years ago|reply
Xcode?
[+] [-] kabdib|12 years ago|reply
Sony is infamous for saying things like this, then screwing people with the details.
[+] [-] seanp2k2|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jokoon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] KingLot|12 years ago|reply
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/JamesSilva/20130523/192832/Were_I...
[+] [-] eropple|12 years ago|reply
(Not saying he's wrong to feel that way, but his biases are stark.)